When scientists get emotional

“Launches are inherently dangerous,” said Nicolas Thomas, when he waited at Baikonur Cosmodrome for ExoMars to lift off in March 2016: “There is always some sort of a risk of something blowing up. As long as the thing doesn’t blow up when I am too close to it.” Thomas is Principal Investigator of CaSSIS, the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System, aboard the spacecraft and PlanetS project leader. In Kazakhstan he was accompanied by a TV crew of National Geographic. The video is now online:http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/mars/videos/the-launch-of-exomars/